


encore

by akaparalian



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: A softer world - Freeform, Angsty Schmoop, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 12:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaparalian/pseuds/akaparalian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When we kiss I can hear your thoughts,” he says quietly one night, somewhere after, when they’re both settling into drifting fatigue. “So I would rather we didn’t.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	encore

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to stop writing late at night. Also, this was inspired by A Softer World, specifically #134 and #140. 
> 
> Soundtrack: _Landfill_ \- Daughter; _Skinny Love_ \- Bon Iver

It’s just this soft press of lips, at first, and he jerks back as though shocked, because this is not how they are supposed to be, not how these days are supposed to go. But then he hesitates, because in that moment he’d heard the most beautiful flash of thought-song, and he leans forward again, like it’s a drug, like he can’t stop himself, because it is and he can’t, and when their shivering lips meet again he sighs into it, because those thoughts- he doesn’t mind that they rend reality a bit, because they’re lyrically fierce and he wishes he could drown in them. So he does, even as he parts his lips to drink more in and thinks  _perhaps just this once._  
  


—

  
It isn’t just that once.  
  


—

  
Over time, though, it changes, becomes harder, harsher even than it was at first. And every time, it becomes more impossible, because he  _should not_  be able to hear these things as though they’re a lullaby, a plea, but he can, he can.  
  
“Charles,” he says, voice empty, thoughts like blurring stars. The song crescendos and he forgets what he was going to say and he kisses harder instead.  
  


—

  
He really shouldn’t keep coming back, but the drug is becoming more addicting by the nanosecond, and he needs more hits, more, always more; really, he’s given up inwardly pretending this will be the last one, though he keeps up the outward facade. He can’t stop, and every time he silently slides the window open (the only window in the entire fucking house that’s linked to a completely different security system with a completely different passcode, because Charles still trusts him and that absolutely  _wrecks_  him, not that he shows it) and slips inside, gently sets his effects on the nightstand and toes off his boots and then settles on the bed and wraps around the little furnace that is Charles Xavier, always fast asleep and so  _vulnerable_ , it feels like submitting (that’s probably because he knows that it is).  
  


—

  
“When we kiss I can hear your thoughts,” he says quietly one night, somewhere after, when they’re both settling into drifting fatigue. “So I would rather we didn’t.”  
  
Charles knows he doesn’t mean that, and proves it by kissing him to sleep.  
  


—

  
He doesn’t remember the first time he hears something he didn’t like, possibly because there’s never been a time when he didn’t, but he does know that recently the cloud of dark thoughts in Charles’ head, in Charles’ lips, has gotten darker and larger. He knows what’s coming, knows he’s going to have to make a choice, again, for far from the first time and far from the last. So he does: he stops.  
  
It lasts for all of two weeks, but they’re brutal, and he spends all of them wanting to know the song again, because with each minute away, it’s falling apart in his mind, note by note, and it’s like he’s dying, or worse, it’s like he’s being forced back to life, under the harsh sun of the real world again, to a place where nights aren’t warm and quiet and song and _Charles_.   
  
He’ll forget what it’s like to remember soon enough, he thinks, and he spends the night twisting anything he can touch into fire and scars.  
  


—

  
Except he doesn’t give himself the chance.   
  


—

  
“I’m glad you came back,” he hears, even as the song weaves into his head again, a thick trail of woodsmoke and ice.   
  
“I know,” he says, because that’s the closest he can come to  _me, too_. The kiss tells him that Charles is fluent enough in his language to know that.  
  
He does remember that that’s the first time the song says something in particular that he doesn’t like, that makes him want to melt and burn and say it back, and for some reason that’s also the first time he stays all the way until morning, no matter how much he knows he should leave. He’s beginning to think he might be the enemy here, after all, though enemy of what he’s not sure.  
  
At any rate, they have waffles for breakfast.  
  


—

  
He gets back too late that morning, and he feels the stares burning into his neck, from his own home and all the way from Westchester, and he can’t even really bring himself to regret it. Then again, he can’t bring himself to apologize, either, but _since when is there something to apologize for_? he thinks, and gathers himself tighter and keeps walking.  
  


—

  
Well, all right, maybe there is something.  
  
But not everything. Only the one thing, really, not- no. Just the one thing. The rest, he’s right about.  
  
(It sounds as weak to him as he’s sure it does to Charles when he hears it and smiles just a little; Erik knew he shouldn’t have taken off the damnable helmet.)  
  


—

  
One night he wakes, his grip too tight around Charles’ middle, sure he’s just watched blood soak the sand once, twice (both his fault, only one on purpose), and he’s shaking while Charles works fingers through his hair and says, “It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m right here,” and he thinks, distracted,  _that’s not enough_ , and all Charles can do is sigh and say, “I know.”

—

“I suppose I should say, first, that I am truly sorry. Second, I have spent these last two years loving you, every night that I snuck into this room. Thirdly, please, change that security code, it’s not safe. Fourth, I’d really like to stay, now. If that’s all right.”  
  
Charles smiles and says, “That only took two years longer than it should have,” except when Erik kisses him what he hears is  _thank you,_  and then an encore.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [encore (the long game remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12049875) by [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten)




End file.
